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Thomas Tuchel has explained injury forced him to substitute Harry Kane before Bayern Munich collapsed against Real Madrid in their dramatic Champions League semi-final.
The Germans were on track to reach the final at Wembley after Alphonso Davies’ strike put them 3-2 up on aggregate.
Tuchel then removed Kane, whose wait for a trophy goes on despite scoring 44 goals in all competitions this season, after 85 minutes, with Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting as his replacement.
Real Madrid swiftly equalised three minutes later through Joselu and the former Stoke striker struck again three minutes later to leave Bayern distraught.
Tuchel was then heavily criticised after the 4-3 aggregate defeat for taking Kane out of the game with the tie still alive, but the German has now explained injury forced his hand.
“His back had gone, he couldn’t go on,” Tuchel explained after the match.
Tuchel’s defensive changes were criticised by TNT Sport pundits Owen Hargreaves and Paul Scholes, with centre-back Kim Min-jae, who made an error in the first leg in Munich, struggling after he was brought on midway through the second half in Madrid.
“That’s one of the biggest substitutions I’ve ever seen in a game of football,” former Bayern and England midfielder Hargreaves said. “To take off a guy that has scored over 40 goals – you cannot take him off.
“I mean, that’s one of the biggest calls. I love Thomas Tuchel but I don’t know why they made that call. Bayern had it in their hands and they let it go. You can not take Harry Kane off.”
“It’s almost an arrogance,” former Manchester United midfielder Scholes continued. “Thinking, ‘I can take my biggest threat off the pitch and still go through and beat Real Madrid’.
“There was 10 minutes, even if Real got one goal, it’s a long time to play. “I couldn’t tell you [why they made the sub]. They were always going to try and score goals on the counter-attack and Harry Kane was perfect for that.”